Research aids online dating experience

A good friend of mine recently joined a dating website, which is a perfectly fine thing to do. She’s a mature woman and, like many, realizes that there aren’t that many places people can go to meet suitable companions these days. As soon as she joined the dating site, she received a message from a man purporting to be a soldi...

A good friend of mine recently joined a dating website, which is a perfectly fine thing to do. She’s a mature woman and, like many, realizes that there aren’t that many places people can go to meet suitable companions these days. As soon as she joined the dating site, she received a message from a man purporting to be a soldier stationed in Afghanistan. She showed me the messages he had sent her, as well as the photographs. My cop antenna immediately went up.

The first email he sent her was obviously written by a non-native English speaker. It read like one of those spam emails we all get from people named Mrs. Mary Goodlove or the Hon. Moses D. Amblissi. Lots of flowery words: Beloved, precious, my dearest — that kind of stuff. Those types of scams usually originate from Nigerians, Russians or other countries on the other side of the globe.

The rest of the emails were nonsense. They were long epistles about what this man wanted in life, filled with tons of lofty talk about his philosophy and what a good, loving man he was. They appeared to have been lifted wholesale from the Internet. I told her that nothing about this man rang true and if she was smart, she’d ignore him. I believe he will eventually start asking her for money, which is what these guys generally do. She later told me she blocked him from being able to contact her.

When I returned home I looked up the website, which runs a lot of ads on television and is aimed at mature adults, to see what its reputation was and the results were not encouraging. People reported almost unanimously that customer service was nonexistent and they kept billing one’s credit card even after cancelling. They also said that many of the people enrolled were hit on by predators much like the one who was writing my friend.

I may not be the smartest person, and I know that some of these online dating sites have worked for some; but if you’re thinking of using an online dating site, please do some research before you sign up. Just do a thorough search of the site’s name and the word reviews. The results could help you save a little money and lots of aggravation.

Also, if the guy who answers your ad sounds too good to be true, remember what we always said in law enforcement: If it sounds too good to be true, it is. And never, ever give out personal details or send money to people like this. You’re just being taken for a ride.

One last word: Run the people who reply to your profile by someone who cares about you. Sometimes others can see what you can’t — or won’t — see.